A New Biological Citizenship: Posthumanism in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling

Material Type

Article

Language

English

Title

A New Biological Citizenship: Posthumanism in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling

Author(S)

Pramod K. Nayar (Author)

Abstract

This essay argues that Octavia Butler’s Fledgling traces, in the transformation of the protagonist Shori from mere zo? into b?os, the evolution of a posthumanist condition where vampires coevolve with humans. This occurs in three stages before climaxing in a posthumanist corporeality that involves a multispecies biological citizenship. Shori’s biovalue and biological citizenship is at once corporeal and moral. Biovalue in Butler’s posthumanist vision, I conclude, inheres in the moral enhancement of Shori and is the result of her multispecies citizenship. ...